Gym Etiquette 101: The Water Fountain

The water fountain, water bubbler, water squirter, is the most sought after piece of piping in any gym you go to (it’s called water fountain by the way). If your dumb enough to forget a water bottle and are obligated to take a .3 ounce sip of water out of a filthy fountain that sprays up your nose and in your eyes, then you understand the unwritten rules.

And yesterday at my local gym, many people broke those unwritten rules in blatant fashion. The rules are as follows:

1) If you are using the water fountain and you see someone behind you, you don’t fill up an empty water bottle:
– Seems like common sense, but the perpetrator yesterday didn’t even put one drop of water in her Nalgene bottle when I got in line. To make things worse, the perp looked me directly in the eye and THEN decided to fill up her 46 oz. plastic water bottle that she thinks is trendy. In gym terms, she took my manhood.

2) Keep your mouth a proper distance away from the spout:
– Again, this seems like common sense but this might be the most heinous and common water fountain rule that is broken. The subject that broke this rule yesterday was in the elder demographic and apparently couldn’t decipher what the proper drinking distance was. So as a result of old age and confusion, the subject placed his mouth directly onto the water spout, thus sucking the water coming out of the fountain. Holding back my lunchI sharply pivoted and briskly walked towards the workout area trying to erase my most recent memory. I continued to work out for 70 minutes, without any water.

3) Drinking noises and sounds:

– The number of people that broke this unwritten rule yesterday was off the charts. You would think that people would be aware of the horrible slurping sounds they make at the fountain, but that didn’t stop a majority of the people making the gym sound like an LA porn film set. Just slurping and spitting all around. Behind people eating with their mouth open, people making noises when they drink from public fountains is the second most disgusting thing any human can do. Vomiting and diarrhea are tied for third.